3 comments:

JK
said...

OT - Newsweek is calling this an "echo bubble", so maybe the end is nigh. A suprisingly good, brief financial article for that publication.

"Echo bubbles tend to be smaller and fade away faster than the first bubble." On average, they reach about 30 to 40 percent of the size of the original before bursting and sending market values back down to where they should have been all along, wiping out the gains of the echo, but generally not dipping back to the previous low. That implies a Dow falling to 7000 or 8000.

While new bubbles tend to build on entirely new market fads, echo bubbles generally retrace old territory. It's no accident that today's biggest price spikes are in assets like commodities (which peaked in 2008) and emerging markets (late-2007 peak). "The story of endless global growth, now driven by China and other key emerging markets, is a dream that dies hard," notes Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets for Morgan Stanley Investment Management. "

Interesting, but I think it paints with too broad a brush. I agree that most domestic stocks are overvalued, and I agree that Chinese growth won't carry the U.S. economy or the world's economy. But if Chinese growth continues, it will, to a large extent, carry Australia's economy, for example.

Also, the financial crisis will have more lingering effects in the overleveraged parts of the developed world (such as the U.S.) than in under-banked parts of the developing world such as Brazil. The financial sector there wasn't anywhere near as large as ours as a percentage of GDP, and its large banks seem to be on stronger footing than most of ours as well.

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